There are no real "guarantees" in life. However, at some gun clubs, you'll find that you're decidedly unwelcome if you show up with your Damascus whatever. I have correspondence from this very BB, quite a few years back, from a guy who went to the trouble to send his Damascus Elsie to England for proof, just so he could satisfy the powers that be at his club. Guess you could find another club, if you live in an area where they're not few and far between.
Proof is NOT an attempt to "blow a gun up". It is, rather, an attempt to determine whether a particular gun will safely handle a load that's significantly above the standard service pressure in that particular country. And proofhouses do a good bit more than the "tie it to a tire" test. They do a careful examination to see if there have been any changes--not just critical destruction--following the firing of a proof load. They're just a tad bit more competent than the shade tree gun tester who gives it a go with the gun lashed to a tire, while he hides behind a tree. (And by the way . . . where does said shade tree gun tester get his proof loads, anyhow? SAAMI proof loads develop something like 18-19,000 psi. Unless you have the capabilities of Bell/Armbrust, how would you know that the load you've fired is the equivalent of a proof load?)
Far as I know, all current American gun and ammo makers still proof their own guns and shells. If we were to adopt a CIP (Brit/European) like system, they could continue doing that if SAAMI were willing to verify their testing procedures. Matter of fact, SAAMI could easily act as the American proof house, in the case of guns substantially modified (like having chambers lengthened), if they were willing to take on that role. Or, we could continue to have gunsmiths punching chambers so that the owners of the modified guns can shoot whatever they want in guns designed for lower pressures.
If you read a bit of history, you'll find that everything was a whole lot easier back before WWII. Back then, because the conversion to 2 3/4" chambers and loads as pretty much standard was relatively recent, there were actually more short shells available from American ammo companies than there were 2 3/4". No need to punch chambers; all you had to do was buy the right shells, which were loaded to the appropriate pressures. Today, with only old or foreign guns having short chambers and with short shells not nearly as readily available, it's more of a problem.
